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“You okay, Taylor?” Lisa asked, voice breaking through the idle thoughts and aimless buzz around Taylor’s antenna, so much radio static and tv snow but somehow in mental form. While Lisa had expressed no small amount of grief over the limitations ears and a tail gave her, Taylor found her gaze lingering on the red-russet fur, fingers twitching at the thought of touching the white tips of both, and the feeling of soft skin against her own.
Taylor tried to shove the interference away from the forefront of her thoughts, channeling it into her bugs and returning to calm. “Yeah. Just heat stuff.”
Lisa winced. “That sucks, sweetie.”
“Aren't you on suppressants? I know Rachel doesn't like ‘em, but you're not feral,” Alec commented, raising an eyebrow from where he sat on the couch, some shooter game on in the background. Not for the first time Taylor felt a pang of jealousy at the relative ease he had. While not everyone who both presented and got powers ended up with animal traits, it did seem to disproportionately affect those with animal-themed powers. Lung had the scales his tattoo curled around, Hookwolf had his raggedy-ass tail, Bad Canary had her feathers...
“Fuck you Alec, that's insanely rude,” Lisa snapped, scowling and baring her almost-canine teeth.
Taylor sighed, leaning back in her chair and pinching her brow. A headache had begun forming, right over one eye, and she was strongly considering calling it a day. “I had been taking suppressants before triggering, yes, but my new biology doesn't seem to react the same way. Most heat suppressants work fine for capes with mammalian traits, but...”
Alec made a half-hearted sound of understanding, already checking back out. “But since you got freaky bug powers, you've got freaky bug bits inside.”
“Taylor, I can see you getting a headache without my power,” Lisa interrupted, glaring at Alec. “Take a break in your room, lights off. I'll come by with tea to help you feel better.”
Reluctantly, Taylor closed her laptop and did as ordered. It was easier to just follow Lisa’s orders a lot of the time. While Brian and Alec seemed to be blissfully unaware of the hormone jockeying that instinctively occurred whenever there were two alphas on the same team and Taylor had enough of a handle on herself to be able to run jobs without being compromised, the stress of moving out of her dad’s place plus formally dropping out of school, plus huffing Rachel’s omega signals for days, plus her first unmedicated heat in who knew how long,..
Ugh.
Once in her room, Taylor quickly changed into sleepwear, turned off the light, and began pulling blankets around her, mindful of the antennae she was still learning to live with and the small panels of carapace that pushed through her skin at her boniest parts. It wasn't a full nest, both because nests were for omegas and because Taylor didn't have a partner to beg for scent markers. Emma had made sure of that.
Taylor tried to rest. She consciously relaxed her muscles, counted to ten, took and held deep breaths. Nothing seemed to change. Things didn't get worse, didn't deteriorate, and maybe the headache stopped pounding quite as hard, but it was a far cry from relief.
Then the door opened and Taylor caught a whiff of new pheromones and groaned.
“This is not going to make things easier,” Taylor ground out, back teeth pressed together as she did her best to inhale and exhale shallowly. Lisa had flooded the room with the scent of lavender, something Taylor knew had to be her brain making things up. No one smelled good during a heat, regardless of what they or their partner thought. It was always a sweaty, fetid, and cloying scent, seemingly half water by volume, except for this time when it reminded Taylor of spring and fresh tea and the smell of new books.
A sigh, a rustle of cloth, and something heavy with the same wonderful scent on it settled onto Taylor. She managed to keep herself from taking more than one deep breath, but that lungful alone made her neck go slack like so many wires being cut at once. “From where I'm standing that seems like a lie. How about you just accept that I'm right and let me help you?”
I can handle this, Taylor thought to herself.
The screaming of her skin stayed her tongue, and the proffered salve of a partner, of someone similarly minded but giving, made Taylor swallow the words.
After a few more moments, Lisa sighed. “Also, I just took a heat inducer, and if you don't help me out soon it's going to get really embarrassing.”
Taylor growled, the noise tickling the back of her throat and waking up instincts she'd done her level best to ignore ever since their preferred subject stomped all over more than a decade of friendship. “Aren't those illegal?”
The blanket fort (not a nest) broke open, and the growl gave way to a whimper at the rush of cold air. “We're criminals, honey. Having access to a substance with innumerable medical uses doesn't tip the needle when you've got counts of grand theft and assault.
“Besides,” Lisa added, voice lower and raspier, sliding over Taylor’s nerves like silk as skin that was somehow softer brushed against her like starbursts of sensation, gaps of modesty that almost seared in their strangeness, “have you ever considered that maybe I'd want to help you? Outside a heat, even?”
Taylor’s near-whimper caught in her throat.
Lisa's sigh caressed the shell of Taylor’s ear, her weight settling on top of Taylor like so much ballast in a ship. “We can talk about what that means once you're not channeling half an aneurysm into your swarm, okay sugar?”
One of her hands slid down Taylor’s side, fingertips tracing the hem of her sleep shirt and bringing what felt like every scrap of Taylor’s attention to the faint sensation of nails against her skin. “For now, I just want to take care of you.”
“I—” Taylor tried, her voice cracking halfway through the sentence when Lisa’s other hand began playing with the waistband of her shorts, a position which put Lisa’s entire upper body against Taylor’s back in a press that had her growing harder against her will. “I've got different equipment than—”
A nip shorted out Taylor's breath again. “Yeah, I know. That's kinda my whole thing.”
Taylor shook her head, dragging herself away from the bliss of warmth and touch. “It's not a dick.”
A huff, and Taylor felt Lisa rock her hips, a notable length bumping promisingly against Taylor’s ass. “You know, it's going to be really hard to kiss you if I have to keep telling you that I know already—”
“Eggs,” Taylor ground out, shame filling her. “I come eggs.”
“And as long as you don't try to put them inside me I don't care,” Lisa growled, the noise rumbling through Lisa’s chest, powerful enough to make Taylor quiver. “Now can we please get to the part where I get to touch my favorite teammate and see what sort of fun we can have with our clothes off?”
The echoes of phrases, cruel and petty, melted away at the thought of feeling that pressure without layers of fabric, and Taylor jerked her head into a nod.
“Thank you,” Lisa said, the tone shift from ‘mildly-irate’ to ‘smarmy’ almost jarring, the sudden change lost as one set of fingers rucked up Taylor’s top, while the other slipped beneath the terry cloth of her shorts to touch her ovipositor.
Taylor gasped, her body curling at the nearly-novel sensation. The few times she’d tried to get off after triggering hadn't gone well, too marred by stress and bad memories, and the alien nature of feeling something closer to carapace than flesh didn't help matters.
Lisa, though...
“Feels nicer than I expected,” she said, a hint of surprise entering her voice. “Smooth. Has some anti-microbial properties.” Taylor’s shaft slipped into the slight dip in the heel of Lisa's hand, and Taylor's hips bucked. “It's kind of perfect, actually.”
“Don't lie,” Taylor said, but it was half-hearted. Most of her focus was on not grinding into Lisa's palm, and what little other capacity she had was zeroed on where Lisa had begun fondling her chest. “I know I’m not—”
Lisa clucked her tongue, and Taylor caught the rest of her sentence before it finished. “How about this: every time you want to say something mean about yourself, say thank you instead.”
Thank you for being my friend.
Too raw. Too much. Instead, Taylor found her way back to full sentences and said, “Thank you for touching me.”
The languid stroke Lisa gave her had Taylor’s gut clenching, even as her shoulders and back relaxed, easing her further down. “See? Was that so hard?”
“Yes,” Taylor muttered. The slow, steady motions of a hand job probably weren’t supposed to be this effective at treating an unregulated heat, but since when did anything about powers make sense?
Lisa's other hand cupped one of Taylor's breasts and began kneading. “Well, in that case you need to practice. Now try again.”
“Thank you.” Reluctantly, Taylor did find the second utterance easier.
“For?” Lisa asked, giving Taylor’s nipple a light pinch and prompting a full-body jolt, a violent return to reality where they both paused.
In the quiet, Taylor almost said, I’m sorry for ruining everything.
“Too far?” Lisa asked, words gentle as an IV needle.
Taylor took a breath, filling her lungs with lavender and musk. “No. Just... new.”
“If it helps, this is new to me too,” Lisa muttered, and before Taylor could process that Lisa went back to work, still pinching, still squeezing, but slower, softer, and Taylor felt a loose tenderness begin to form in her heart.
“What about you?” Taylor asked, doing her best to stay focused on the present, to not lose herself. It felt too easy, being touched like this. She had a vague sense that she should be doing something, be more active, and reciprocate in the somehow-perfect way that always seemed so natural in stories.
Another growl, almost a purr, and Lisa rolled her hips hard enough that Taylor moved two inches forward. The heat between the two of them “Trust me, Taylor, I'm doing great.”
There wasn't anything to say to that, so Taylor let herself slip into the fuzzy, soft state of receiving a rut.
Time blurred at the edges. They both were clothed, then Lisa lost her shirt and pressed her chest into Taylor’s back and Taylor finished pulling her tank off. They both had shorts on, thighs teasing one another where the front of Lisa’s occasionally dipped between Taylor’s, and then Taylor could feel Lisa’s dick sliding between her ass-cheeks and the elastic of her shorts around her knees, slightly restrictive in a manner that made her want to keep them there forever. Taylor had contented herself with grinding into the circle of Lisa’s hand and against her shaft, and then Lisa had started murmuring filth in Taylor’s ear and muscles below and behind her navel were clenching and it felt so close to being winded but it kept going and Taylor kept panting while Lisa kept jacking her off and pressing her hips down, as if through sheer determination she could be inside Taylor.
That last thought, the thought of bitching for Lisa, tripped a breaker in Taylor’s mind, and she closed her mouth to keep the ensuing scream inside as heat swept through her and obliterated everything else.
“Hot,” Lisa said, the words distant in the haze of relaxation, her withdrawing fingers a mild discomfort where everywhere around Taylor’s ovipositor was too sensitive, a small puddle of what Taylor knew was lumpy white fluid almost certainly staining the sheets. “I’ll have to soundproof this room so you don’t have to hold in your noises.”
A quiver went through Taylor at the thought of a future with more, some sort of aftershock from what was probably an orgasm, and Taylor considered protesting.
Instead she took a deep breath, swallowed the protest, and tried to be normal with her best friend naked on top of her. “Thank you, Lisa. That was... nice.”
“I think it was amazing, actually,” Lisa said primly, and Taylor could hear the smirk in her voice. “Also, did you know the euphoria fluid your eggs are suspended in is poppers?”
Taylor cringed with her whole body. “Please never call it that again.”
“Your ‘joy juice’—”
“Not better,” Taylor interrupted.
“—is a smooth muscle relaxant,” Lisa continued, tone firmly in the category of ‘thinking and not tolerating critique’. “Doesn’t penetrate skin easily, but introduce it to a mucosal membrane and you should get the effects real fast. Also has some lubricating properties.”
The air lay flat, and Taylor realized Lisa was waiting for her to ask a question. “So, why does this matter?”
“Well, it means I don’t have to get up for lube if you want me to fuck you,” Lisa said, totally matter-of-fact, even as her still-hard cock twitched against Taylor’s ass.
“Yes.” When Taylor realized what came out of her mouth she flinched. “I mean, if you—”
The rest of the sentence gave way to a breathy hiss when Lisa sank her teeth into Taylor’s collar, harsh and firm and so close to a mating bite that Taylor nearly came again right there. It was the kind of moan Taylor had resigned to the sole purview of beautiful girls like Emma or Madison or Lisa and which felt like honey flowing out of her, sweet and loving and gorgeous.
“I brought it up because I want it,” Lisa said, one arm pushing herself up, manicured fingers sinking into the mattress next to Taylor’s face, and fingers soaked in remarkably-warm fluid circling her asshole. “I want it, you want it, we can do it, and unless you say stop I’m going to go until I knot you.”
“Thank you. I mean please. I mean please please please—”
One finger slipped in. Then a second. Taylor felt her grasp of language go as Lisa began stroking her fingers in and out, resistance giving way to warmth and pressure without the pain the Winslow-brand sex ed class had insisted was normal for girls, muscles slipping and calming as Lisa went deeper into her.
“God, you’re so perfect,” Lisa whispered, adding a third finger.
Taylor bit a pillow to keep from screaming.
“You like that word, don’t you?” Lisa continued, her volume at the same infuriatingly-low tone, almost drowned out by the faint slip of flesh on flesh. “You like being told you’re doing well. You like knowing that someone finds you gorgeous. That someone thinks your wonderful bronze plates go well with your eyes. That your hair is a testament to care and beauty. You like that someone feels you and loves it, that I feel your insides and want to feel them more, that I’m going to push into you and rut so deep that you won’t know where you end and I begin.”
One more finger, and Taylor loosened her jaw with an effort of will. “Lisa, please, fuck me. Thank you. Please.”
A twist and Taylor blinked at the little flashes that overcame her vision. “Well, when you ask nicely...”
Lisa slowly pulled her hand (one two three four fingers, Lisa had her whole hand inside her) out, replacing it a second later with something warm and hard.
Taylor’s breath caught, and in the next moment Lisa’s hand was on Taylor's lower back, rubbing a soothing circle into it. “I meant it when I said you could tell me to–”
Shut up, Taylor thought, saving her breath and rocking back.
Lisa slipped inside of Taylor, and the fullness felt less like penetration and more like rapture, a ‘letting go’ driven by the total removal of agency. For the first time in what had to be years, tomorrow stopped existing and yesterday ceased to matter. There was only Taylor, Lisa, and the connection between them, intimate and soothing.
(In the background Taylor registered a whine, high and sharp. Nearly claw-like nails sank into Taylor’s hips, pinpricks of fire against the roaring tide of rightness, and Taylor could’ve sworn she heard the words ‘I love you.’)
Taylor almost didn’t care that Lisa began moving. She almost slipped into sleep, the vague roaring and humming in her ears that had haunted her since freshman year finally quiet. She almost let herself fully relax, drift into an empty calm as Lisa babbled to herself and pounded in and out of Taylor, so fast that the only distinction she truly felt was between being nearly empty and being almost full.
Almost, because Lisa’s hips always stopped just short of putting a knot in Taylor.
“Please, Lisa,” Taylor said, the desperation foreign on her lips, not for its nature, but for the anticipation flavoring it. “Please fucking knot me.”
“Only if you mean it,” Lisa said, and Taylor could hear the taut whipcord of strained control in her voice. “You’ve got to use your words, Tay. Say ‘thank you’ and it's yours.”
The nickname could’ve been horrible, could’ve been an echo of a million laughs made horrible by association, and instead Taylor found herself clenching down harder at the recontextualization, warmth and familiarity partially earned bringing her ever-closer to the edge. “Thank you, Lisa!”
A moment of resistance, with a burn just barely painful, and the full breadth of Lisa pressed into Taylor, hips meeting ass, and Taylor felt that wonderful, addictive rush of power that lit her skin on fire and wiped out all higher thought.
“Finally,” Lisa muttered, slowly pulling herself out of Taylor, a slight grimace on her face. They’d rotated around after the post-coital haze faded, and Taylor got to admire the sight of Lisa kneeling between her legs, tail flicking from side to side and ears twitching at noises Taylor couldn’t hear. “Remind me to bring de-knotting cream next time.”
Taylor opened her mouth, but Lisa stopped her, one hand raised and eyes playful. “No. You do not get to say ‘sorry’ for giving me a chance to see what sex is like. This is a ‘Lisa should’ve prepared better’ thing, not a ‘Taylor did something wrong’ thing.”
“In that case, thank you for sleeping with me without everything figured out,” Taylor said, sitting up and rolling her shoulders. The world had cleared up a little, a layer of indistinct white noise no longer haunting every other movement and motion. Her eyesight even felt better.
Lisa smiled, less cutting than her usual smirk. “That’s actually a wonderful thing to say. Thank you, Taylor.”
Taylor lifted her hand, ready to pull Lisa into a hug, then paused, staring at the gulf of empty space between them and wondering whether anything had changed.
Fortunately Lisa reached out, slipping her fingers between Taylor’s and squeezing once. “Want to talk about what this means after a shower.”
“Yes, please,” Taylor said, the anxiety falling back somewhat. There were steps now, a path to take. Shower, dry, dress, and talk. Not much of a plan, not the sort that Taylor preferred to have when dealing with something more consequential than jail time or money, but a plan nonetheless.
I love you, Taylor didn’t say.